Tuesday, 29 January 2013

Why now?

In the last 4 years I have been pretty busy. I have met, dated and married my husband, been promoted and then made redundant, moved house 5 times, had children and applied to become a foster carer! The majority of them being life long desires and on my 'when I get older' list. What an amazing, full on 4 years!

My husband and I both knew we wanted to foster children before we met each other, so it has never been about 'will we?' but 'when will we?' When I was made redundant and was coming to the end of maternity leave we thought we should start finding out when we could start the process. I have a professional background working with looked after children and so decided to quiz an old colleague about it. We were surprised when we were told we could start straight away! We sat on this news for a couple of months - letting it sink in and making sure when we said go we were certain of our decision, so in September 2012 we started the application process.

We decided to go with a Fostering agency for the following simple reasons; we know them, we respect their professional integrity and it gives us more flexibility. Fostering is to be something that benefits everyone in the family. The foster child/ren, our biological children and our marriage should be strengthened and enhanced by the experience. We believe we are in the right hands to be able to give fostering our best shot.

So that answers the question 'Why now?' the next question is 'What happens next?'- cue next blog entry.....

Huh?

I am 'mum' of a reasonably young family and recently we started the journey of becoming a foster family. This blog is to share the ups, downs, facts and emotions of it all. Hopefully this blog will inform or inspire you and maybe if you've been thinking of fostering yourself will give you insight into how it all goes.